Peter Salisbury
@peterjsalisbury · Think tanks & analysts — US/UK
Peter Salisbury is a researcher of the political economy of war and peace and a Century International fellow.
Over the past six months a team of researchers at @TCFdotorg's Century international has published three blockbuster reports, on Houthi supply chains, the shifting inner workings of the Axis of Resistance, and, yesterday, on Houthi network-building in Africa.
@Ndawsari @PuntlandPirates This matters because the Houthis' expansion strategy matters because it closely mirrors efforts by Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in the early to mid-2000s, to mold the nonstate armed groups they sponsored into a Middle East-wide network that became today’s Axis of Resistance
@Ndawsari @PuntlandPirates The short story is that since the early 2020s the Houthis have become a key player in illicit trade in Yemen and its neighborhood; recruited migrants from African countries to serve as smugglers, spies, and soldiers; and built ties with al-Shabaab and other armed actors
Along with @Ndawsari, @PuntlandPirates and a team of incredible researchers, I've been tracing the Houthis' outreach across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for the past year. You can see what we learned here: https://t.co/CxdoVGIZ8D
The Houthis are back in the headlines and may be headed back to war with their Yemeni rivals for the first time since 2022. One of the ways the group has changed since the last round of internal conflict is that they have grown their networks in Africa.